Photo Story

Dramatic Stormy Sky Over Tampa Bay From The Pier

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Dramatic Sky over Tampa Bay - 5-bracket HDR f/8 ISO 200 tripod mounted with cable releaseI have been starting to miss mountains the past few weeks.  I watched every stage of the 2011 Tour de France as the riders first went over the Pyrenees and then the Alps.  The helicopter views of the French countryside were often as stunning as the cycling action.  With the option to make landscapes of mountains and architecture shots of old castles, I was thinking, "Florida really has nothing in comparison."

Well, Florida has almost nothing.  Here we do have near daily dramatic sunsets and stormy skies.  Each twilight brings a slightly different cloud pattern, sky color and reflection over Tampa Bay (if looking east from The Pier as in the above photo).

Still, once one lives around mountains, it is hard to forget them.  I imagine it is the same for living by the Sea.  Perhaps the combination of mountains and sea are why so many songs are written about California.  

This Tampa Bay landscape is available for commercial license and fine art print, inquire today!

Tampa Bay with Clouds 6000px Panorama

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Click to view 6000px version -- 10-frame panorama of Tampa Bay with morning cloud coverLast year a friend requested some photographs of clouds.  I never felt I got the exact shot she imagined so in the back of my mind to this day resides that cloud photograph request.  Well this morning out to the east over Tampa Bay was a whole front of large puffy clouds.  I steadied myself on the upper railing on the roof of The Pier in downtown St. Petersburg and using the gridlines (I would never buy a DSLR that does not have this feature) in my Nikon D300 I lined by hand a 10-frame panorama.  Of course it would have been best to use a tripod, but I did not have one with me and since I could clearly see the horizon and thus line it up with the lower-third gridline in my viewfinder, I do not think I could have done much better.

I put the 10 photographs into a folder on my desktop, called up the automated PhotoMerge function in Photoshop CS5 and let the app and my Core i7 cpu do the rest.  Once stitched together I did a little further editing and then resized it to a more manageable version.  The original file is over 14,000 pixels wide!

This Tampa Bay panorama is available for commercial license and fine art print, inquire today!

Twilight Moonrise over The Pier St. Petersburg Florida landscape

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Moonrise over The Pier St. Petersburg Florida - SETUP: f/5.6 ISO 200 1/40th handheld 

"Sometimes I can't believe in, I'm moving past the feeling again." -- Arcade Fire

As society moves further and further into illusion, the order of the natural world ever gets pushed more and more into the background.  This is one of my main motivating forces as a photographer.  I want to preserve the natural world while it is still visible for me to see.  This is the only way I currently know how to stop time.  As I have said before, I make photographs first and foremost for myself to look at.  If others dig them, so be it.

Every sunset to me seems the death of the world.  The sky closes its eyes.  Darkness falls.  Yet, in due time the world brightens again and, lo, there is another day.  

Yet I remain drawn to every sunset I see.  There has to be some escape through it.  

Bowman's Beach Rainbow Sunset Sanibel Island Panorama & HDR

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Click image for 3000px version -- Bowman's Beach Sanibel Island Double Rainbow Panorama - 5-shot panorama image

Bowman's Beach is a dog friendly (on-leash) beach on Sanibel Island, and one of its best beaches of any kind.  I took a timeout from swimming and running with Kiki to photograph a complete rainbow that had formed to the east.  We had to drive through a powerful thunderstorm and wait out the remnants of it while eating onion rings undercover before it was even safe, never mind dry, enough to head out onto the beach.  Storms always seem to leave good things behind, like this rainbow.  I did not even notice it was a double rainbow with my naked eye.  Only once I brought out some detail in Aperture 3 did I see the upper bow.

Sunset over Bowman's Beach Sanibel Island - 3-bracket HDRThe just passed storm also meant the beach was nearly deserted, which was fine by me and Kiki.  We ran far up the shoreline (see photo above) into the sunset, then swam and jogged our way back.  It was one of the most pleasant experiences in recent memory.

Pelican vs. Great Blue Heron Sunset on Snell Isle Battle

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brown pelican vs great blue heron - f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1000th

Two of the largest birds in Florida are the brown pelican and the great blue heron.  They are a common site around Snell Isle.  I have seen both and photographed both many times in the past, but I never caught them in semi-battle with each other.  This particular great blue heron often likes to stand on the edge of a small dock nearby.  I see him/her on my evening walks with Kiki.  This brown pelican too likes to frequent the water around here dive bombing in for a late dinner.

Well, this time the pelican was diving too close to the great blue heron and she/he got cranky and the showdown pictured above took place.  The pelican was determined to eat, the great blue heron was determined to hold her/his ground.  In the end, the pelican moved on and the great blue heron returned to his/her usual stoic stance.   

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    • Powered Paraglider Dreams St. Petersburg Commercial Photography

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    Powered Paragliding across Florida sky - f/4 ISO 200 1/400th manual exposure modeA few nights ago I dreamt I was hired by The Devil for a photography shoot.  He appeared as a small wall clock with large, comical eyes that turned red with anger when I taunted him about doing the shoot the way I wanted.  I knew somehow that The Devil could not touch me, unless, as it said, I dared go to a mirror and be so bold.  Freedom on the edge of danger.  That was the feeling.  I could be bold because I knew I could not be touched, and that I could escape at will.  

    When I look at this powered paraglider I imagine the feeling of Freedom on the edge of danger is what he could be feeling.  

    Another note about this photograph is that I made it in the middle of photographing a beach wedding.  My photography tip for this type of shot is to of course be focused on the shooting on hand, but not so much so that one becomes unaware of the surroundings and what opportune shots may present themselves.  

    Photography Tip - seeing a different reality - kapok silk-cotton tree

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    The famous kapok silk-cotton tree of downtown St. Petersburg in sepiaWhy did I make this photograph?  Because of the shadows the branches were burning into the ground.  That interested me.  As it was close to mid-day the shadows were vividly dark.  They appeared to me to be separate from the tree itself, not so much shadows, but rather an alternative existence for another kapok silk-cotton tree bordering two realities.  This I saw for just a moment in between a lot of other things, like teaching a DSLR Photography Lesson and cars passing by and people jostling past on the sidewalk and the sun uncomfortably heating my skin.

    The photography tip is this:  see a different reality

    My favorite artist is Van Gogh because he saw a different reality, not in his imagination, but through his normal eyes, or was his mind imaging what he say and his eyes believed it to be the reality of others?  Regardless, I believe he literally saw the world as he painted it.  When he looked at a night sky, it was all swirly.  Thus, his paintings are now masterpieces and hold the interest of millions.  If he had painted the sky exactly as it appears to look for most people, he would not be an artist of any significance.  

    Being able to see a different reality is an extremely valuable skill to any artist, to any photographer.  I believe these different realities are not constantly around us though, they exist only for a moment.  Take the above photo for example.  If I returned to that spot a few hours later, the alternative branch shadow reality would not be there.  

    To me an interesting artist/photographer skillfully and creatively shows others the different reality he/she sees on a daily basis.